MEPs vote to scrap Britain's working time opt-out

The government yesterday suffered a serious blow to its campaign for flexible labour markets at home and throughout the European Union when MEPs voted by a large majority to scrap Britain's opt-out from the maximum 48-hour working week.

MEPs voted 378 to 262, with 15 abstentions, in favour of phasing out the opt-out from the working time directive, won by John Major 13 years ago, within three years.

The scale of the majority shocked business leaders, but they took heart from the immediate rejection by Vladimir Spidla, EU employment and social affairs commissioner, of the legislative changes demanded.

The vote, hailed by union leaders as signalling a victory in their campaign to halt a long-hours culture spreading across Europe and restore the work-life balance, will bring a fierce power battle between MEPs on one side and the council of ministers and the commission on the other.

The government is counting on backing from Germany, Luxembourg, Malta and many of the former communist east European member states to form at the very least a blocking minority when employment ministers meet to consider the European parliament's amendments on June 3 and again at a summit two weeks later.

British Labour MEPs ignored Tony Blair in spite of warnings from ministers and business groups not to undermine UK competitiveness.

Business leaders reacted strongly to the scrapping of the opt-out. About four million Britons, or one in seven of the workforce, work more than 48 hours a week.

"Today's vote shows the European parliament has learned nothing about the challenge of globalisation. Presumably these are the same MEPs who will be complaining about employers relocating to China and India in the years to come," said CBI chief Sir Digby Jones.

"The current opt-out system works, in large part, extremely well. It gives employees choice in the hours they work, allowing them to generate wealth for their families and companies to generate wealth for the nation. People need the opportunity to aspire and earn extra money if they want to."

But TUC chief Brendan Barber repeated his criticism of British bosses, that many had never bothered to inform their employees that they had the right to refuse to work more than 48 hours a week.

He called the European parliament's decision a "victory for a commonsense compromise on the 48-hour working week."

But he said unions would have to concede that the maximum working week would in future be averaged over the whole year, rather than the current 17 weeks. This means companies could get workers to work long hours at certain times of the year if they let them work less at other times.

This means the two million British workers working more than 48 hours a week over a 17-week period would not be affected by the change - only the other two million who work long hours all year round.

One of the employers likely to be hardest hit by any change is the National Health Service, where large numbers of staff work very long hours.